Thursday, June 16, 2011

Greece: Lusting On The Tragedy

I cannot stand the word "Greece" anymore. Almost every day the stock markets stick in the doldrums because of the crisis in Greece and the media are focusing on the malaise of the south-eastern European nation.

The current situation reminds me of the year 2009. Then crisis in "Dubai" dominated the news and stocks were under pressure. The British newspaper "The Guardian" wrote in November 2009: "Share prices suffered their biggest fall since March 2009 today amid fears that a debt crisis in the millionaires' playground of Dubai heralded a new phase in the global financial meltdown and a double-dip recession in 2010".

Now the panic over the Dubai crisis is almost forgotten, it didn´t initiate the end of the world, or even the end of the economic upswing. The stock market (S&P 500) gained more than 20% since then. With the benefit of hindsight we can say the Dubai crisis was a chance for investors to get into the stock market cheap.

I guess the Greek crisis is just another opportunity for buying stocks. Again the media is lusting for a crisis and they exaggerate the perils in the global economy by far.

The Greeks don´t determine the world economy. The Hellenic Republic is just an underdeveloped little country on the periphery of Europe (with only 11 million people in a world with around 7 billion). It´s food is unedible, it´s music is unbearable, it´s politicians are untrustworthy. Even when this small peripheral country goes bust, the world economy will continue its upswing - driven by the dynamic in China & India and in other countries.

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